Does Swiggy underpay its vendors and deny them tips from customers?

Food delivery giant Swiggy has found itself in hot waters after one of its delivery partners took to Twitter to showcase the meagre amounts, they are paid for their backbreaking job. The Twitter user named ‘Swiggy DE’ claiming to be working for Swiggy tweeted a screenshot of his cut from the deliveries he had supposedly undertaken.

Tagging Co-Founder and CEO Sriharsha Majety and Swiggy customer care, the delivery partner tweeted, “You want us to survive with this payout?? @swiggy_in @SwiggyCares @harshamjty”

Lamenting about the difficulty faced, the netizen further elaborated that by using the lexicon ‘Delivery Partners’, swiggy sidesteps the responsibility of paying minimum wages or granting any benefit that is usually associated with such jobs.

“Swiggy calls us “Delivery Partners”. That’s why labour laws are not applicable for us. We don’t get minimum wages, PF, ESI, any benefits.. Our lives will change only when they treat us as their employees. We are just ID’s, not humans in the eyes of @swiggy_in”

The user also mentioned that in the aftermath of the pandemic, the food delivery company had done away with the incentives program.

“Before corona Swiggy paid Daily, Weekly and Monthly Incentives. They removed Weekly, monthly incentives & Daily MG from April 2020. When we protested they said company is in losses. Now we are getting 20rs/order (6rs/km). Most of the orders are within 3-5kms.”

Then came the distribution of tips that customers pay thinking it will land in the delivery partners’ pockets. However, going by the statement of the said delivery partner, it appears that tips are not reaching the destined place.

After the tweets went viral, the delivery partner received a response from Swiggy where the company claimed that he/she had shared a selective payout screenshot.

“Unfortunately, the payouts shared here are selective and do not include other major components such as incentives. While a particular delivery’s payout varies depending on distance, delivery time and other factors, our average delivery partner payout in Hyderabad was Rs 65 per order last month, with the highest performing partners making Rs 100 per order. Apart from this, all tips paid by consumers go directly to the delivery partner in full” said Swiggy in its defence.

Last year, a similar controversy had erupted against Swiggy when allegations of delivery partners being ‘underpaid’ surfaced. However, through its well-oiled PR machinery, Swiggy managed to douse the fire by releasing statements and refuting the claims, using a similar defence.

“We would like to assert that most active partners have made over Rs 45 per order in the last week, with the high performing partners making over Rs 100 per order. Our partners earn incentives over and above this making their monthly service fee much higher,” the company said.

In the Fairwork India Ratings 2020 where companies are marked on different yardsticks to measure the working conditions of employees, both Swiggy and Zomato fared excruciatingly bad by faring at the bottom of the pile. The food delivery majors managed to score only one point out of 10.

The said study was helmed by the Centre for IT and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB), the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.

However, after the scores were released, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal stepped up and took full responsibility for the abysmal score and said: “We knew we had things to work on, but we didn’t know that there is so much room for improvement.”

With Zomato getting a bumper listing on the stock market after its IPO was released, one can be hopeful that the delivery partners will be paid decently enough, however, the same cannot be said about Swiggy at this stage as the company continues to burn cash without a penny in profit.